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Live review: Wild Beasts – Hammersmith Apollo, 17th February 2018https://musicfactorynumberone.com/2018/02/23/live-review-wild-beasts-hammersmith-apollo-17th-february-2018/
https://musicfactorynumberone.com/2018/02/23/live-review-wild-beasts-hammersmith-apollo-17th-february-2018/#respondFri, 23 Feb 2018 10:44:18 +0000http://musicfactorynumberone.com/?p=4503Last September, long time Music Factory-favourites Wild Beasts decided that the time had come, after five albums of precious indie art-rock, to draw their career to an elegant close. Piers Barber is in the crowd at their emotional final show, delivered to an adoring crowd at London’s Hammersmith Apollo.

Farewell, then, to Wild Beasts, that slightly strange gang of hopelessly romantic Cumbrians who emerged in 2008 armed with sweet falsetto and twinkling melodies to rescue us from lad rock and the Libertines. While the group ultimately never truly set the world alight, the Beasts undoubtedly succeeded in deeply affecting their chosen few with their one-of-a-kind brand of artful indie. Tonight, ten years after their first album release, a selection of thousands gather at Hammersmith Apollo to pay their respects.

This is the first time I have (knowingly) watched a band perform their last ever show, and the realisation that one-by-one we are watching the final performance of so many beautifully crafted songs is unexpectedly hard hitting. The whole thing is decidedly bittersweet. Sure, bowing out prematurely has ensured that this persistently imaginative band depart with considerable dignity and a guaranteed legacy. But it’s undeniably a decision that came from a disheartening place – indeed, it must be deeply depressing to realise that a group to which you have dedicated your entire adult life can no longer attract crowds of any more than 250 to American shows that a few years earlier had been sell outs – an experience that Beasts guitarist Ben Little discusses in the group’s powerful interview on their split with Laura Snapes in Q. “You can deal with being hated, but you can’t deal with not being noticed,” bassist, guitarist and vocalist Tom Fleming admitted.

Last year’s Boy King, of course, was the band’s last gasp attempt to break through the glass ceiling into renowned-pop-powerhouse territory. The album sold well, even reaching the UK top 10 upon release, but its crass reach for brash synth quick-fixes and laddy lyrics left many original fans feeling cold. It’s true that much of the album was delivered at least partly tongue in cheek, and still retains a fair smattering of classic Beasts lyrics exploring fragile masculinity (lead single Big Cat: “It takes all of me, baby, / Being the big cat”).

But tonight even the nudge-nudge-wink-wink melodrama of the confetti canons which greet the beginning of ‘Get My Bang’ aren’t enough to distract from the fact that the album’s macho synths, blokey guitar solos and “alpha woman” rhetoric feel uncomfortably out of place among the rest of the band’s elegant canon. The album’s story provides a potent case against the truism that a band must undergo a continual process of reinvention in order to stay relevant. Despite eventually caving in to making Boy King – becoming, in singer Hayden Thorpe’s words “the band we’ve always objected to being” – it wasn’t created wholeheartedly, and simply wasn’t them – indeed, it seems to have hastened their demise.

Happily, though, tonight’s special setlist is split almost equally between the band’s five albums, including Present Tense, which we chose as the Music Factory’s favourite album of 2011. There are lovely moments throughout, as less prominent members Little and drummer Chris Talbot demonstrate their dexterity through delicate guitar lines and complex drum patterns. Personal favourites are hearing for one last time the wonderful tongue-twister lyrics of ‘Reach A Bit Further’, and – oddly – ‘Deeper’, a reflective Smother ballad which provides space for a poignant moment of reflection midway through the set. There are also outings for lesser-spotted songs from debut Limbo, Panto, including a tasteful rendition of ‘His Grinning Skull’.

The band pack in 24 songs split over two sections, lasting over the course of several hours. A final encore begins with ‘Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants’ and is followed by a triumphant ‘All The King’s Men’, a song which Fleming has clearly adored performing more than anything over the past ten years. It’s final outing, delivered with deep emotion, is made all the more poignant considering his reported stance as the only member of the band opposed to the split.

Then, inevitably, comes ‘End Come Too Soon’, previously known as the exquisite closer to Smother but now a song which seems to have been brought into existence purely for this precise moment and situation (“the night’s been blessed, / With a neverendingness, but none the less, / End come to soon”). One by one the band exchange hugs during the song’s final extended breakdown, before an all-female choir join them for a final lump-in-the-throat chorus. With the band departed, the choir remains to deliver a chilling a capella version of the quaint Limbo, Panto track ‘Cheerio Chaps, Cheerio Goodbye’. With no men and no dramatic guitar crescendo in sight, it serves as a wonderfully on-brand way to bow out.

Perhaps a little oddly, Wild Beasts’ show in a small tent in Coachella in 2011 remains one of my favourite musical memories. Coming soon after the release of Smother but before Present Tense, I watched their short set in the sweltering heat along with one of my closest friends – one who I had initially bonded with partly through the music of this group – while others sought respite from the sun by snoozing at the back. Their performance, delivered to a crowd of probably no more than 30 diehards and bemused, sunstroked Californians, was pitch perfect, full of fun, and laden with emotion. Wild Beasts would never make it to the coveted headline slots of those major festivals, but for me they often provided the moments that made those occasions so precious – and I think they’d be happy to know they left such an important legacy.

Young Soul Rebels: A Personal History of Northern Soulby Stuart Cosgrove [Polygon]

Detroit 67 and Memphis 68, the first two installments of Stuart Cosgrove’s intriguing trilogy on American soul music, have been enthusiastically welcomed for their accessibility and devotion to telling the neglected stories of those less obviously prominent characters. In Young Soul Rebels, Scottish-born Cosgrove applies this approach to an issue closer to home: to the Twisted Wheel, Wigan Casino and the Blackpool Mecca – the stomping drum beat of the northern soul scene where his obsessive adoration of soul music was born.

“It defied almost everything that the commercial marketplace could throw at it,” Cosgrove writes of northern soul, the fascinating and unlikely youth culture from England’s industrial north that obsessed over obscure black American soul singles and record labels – and, as Cosgrove is keen to highlight, indeed continues to do so. His book revels in how the scene preferred “unknown and forgotten records over chart hits and..hidden backstreet clubs to the garish discotheques and mainstream nightclubs of the high street.”

There are few British subcultures more given over to self-eulogising quite like northern soul. Cosgrove recalls how Paul Mason, today a slightly infamous mouthpiece for Jeremy Corbyn but formerly the author’s colleague at Channel 4, saw in the scene “evidence of a resilience in the lives of ordinary people defying globalisation and the cold wins of post-industrial change.” There is certainly something in such an assessment, but it’s a happy relief to find that Cosgrove is not blind to the impurities, challenges and divisions that have plighted the scene’s history.

The northern scene was an often bitterly divided world, with ferocious arguments particularly consuming those who were either loyal to classic stompers specifically from the sixties (favoured by the crowds at Wigan Casino), or those typically devoted to the policy of Blackpool Mecca, where DJs encouraged their audiences to embrace new discoveries from the sixties (known paradoxically as ‘sixties newies’) or more modern sounds such as ‘modern soul’, funk and ­rare groove. Cosgrove appears to fall into the side of the latter camp, thankfully calling out “the chin stroking, the soul police regulations and the grumpy insistence that yesterday was always better.” Other problems which held plighted the scene – ranging from drug abuse and alcoholism to bootlegging and the snobbery of those with the financial means to purchase obscenely rare records – also receive due attention in Cosgrove’s narrative.

Nor, thankfully, is Cosgrove’s book stuck in the much-recounted world of early northern soul. Indeed, his accounts of the nights that came after Wigan and Blackpool – the likes of Morecambe, Stafford, Allenton, Rotherham and London’s 100 Club – are some of the book’s most interesting sections and defy popular understanding that the scene all but fizzled out with the closure of its most iconic clubs.

Happily, too, the narration here is not just 300 pages about how fun the clubs were and how rare the music was. Instead, Young Soul Rebels uses northern soul as a powerful window into some of the most enduring social issues affecting Britain in the second half of the twentieth century. For example, Cosgrove (pictured above) zooms in on how northern soul reacted to the decline of traditional English seaside holiday resorts, and explores how the scene’s gradual shift towards London mirrored the key migration patterns that shaped England during and after Margaret Thatcher’s premiership.

The northern scene also directly intersected with the decline of traditional mining towns. Many of the scene’s key figures, such as northern soul DJ David ‘Bub’ Buttle, served as union reps on the frontline of mining strikes by day and as all-night forces of personality at sweaty northern soul clubs by night. The decline of mining industry – and its underestimated impact on the mental health of northern working class men – is one of the book’s most illuminating sections.

There’s also the story of Peter Sutcliffe, the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’, who struck fear into young women attending northern soul clubs in the 1970s and even claimed one attendee as one of his victims. The sheer proximity of the northern scene to Sutcliffe’s terrors its unnerving. “It’s difficult to explain to outsiders how many risks we took and how dangerous the streets had become,” one young female soul fan admitted. “But it was northern soul and that was all that mattered.”

The book is interspersed with touching stories of the scene’s biggest characters. Crowd-pleaser Buttle, for example, used to memorably exclaim at any given opportunity that London was “just like Barnsley but with more wankers”. Cosgrove also happily ribs the obsessive, all-encompassing tendencies of northern collectors: “Gis was also planning his wedding and had already put Pete’s name down on the invite list, despite fearing that he might criticise the ‘Wedding March’ as too slow and not rare enough.”

Cosgrove and the scene as a whole are clearly deeply proud of the efforts made to recognise the achievements of history’s forgotten soul stars. Some internal feuds within the scene were even settled by promises to donate money to impoverished ex-soul singers over in America. There is perhaps something slightly discomforting about the northern scene’s fetishization of exotic black ghetto music, but it is, of course, impossible to refute the enduring magnificence of the music it rescued from complete neglect.

“Gis was also planning his wedding and had already put Pete’s name down on the invite list, despite fearing that he might criticise the ‘Wedding March’ as too slow and not rare enough.”

I’ve put together a Spotify playlist (featured above) of all the music meticulously detailed in Cosgrove’s book. I am aware of the irony of this – especially after reading stories of the hours consumed, money spent, and terrible records searched through by collectors to triumphantly locate those future-classic releases in the dark corners of American thrift stores. But now, of course, the majority of this music is readily available digitally – a section of the story that Cosgrove happily recounts in the final chapter of his book. The author is clearing proud of the scene’s enduring relevance. With slight overstatement, he describes how northern soul now “uses digital platforms more instinctively than any other subculture”, discussing how platforms such as Facebook have served as impromptu cultural history archives for long lost clubs (a fascinating idea which would be interesting to explore further), and how sites such as Mixcloud have helped dismantle some of northern soul’s conventional DJ snobbery (for which the author has such obvious distaste) and made the great music accessible to all.

There are a few areas in Cosgrove’s great book that I wished the author had time to explore further – a promising section on Manchester Chief Constable James Anderton, for example, tails off slightly just as its getting going. Taken as a whole, though, Cosgrove’s book offers colourful and necessary new shades to the often over-mythologised history of northern soul – a genre which remains perhaps Britain’s most intriguing and heartwarming youth culture movement.

]]>https://musicfactorynumberone.com/2018/01/02/book-review-stuart-cosgroves-young-soul-rebels/feed/01-Xq5iemYOcfSjiTCGBvPYCwpiersbarber1-Xq5iemYOcfSjiTCGBvPYCwYoung Soul Rebels (low res)Stuart-cosgrove.jpgmaxresdefault (1).jpgThe Music Factory’s favourite albums of 2017https://musicfactorynumberone.com/2017/12/28/the-music-factorys-favourite-albums-of-2017/
https://musicfactorynumberone.com/2017/12/28/the-music-factorys-favourite-albums-of-2017/#respondThu, 28 Dec 2017 23:13:30 +0000http://musicfactorynumberone.com/?p=4475It’s time for the annual round-up of the our favourite full-length albums of 2017, this year picked by Buster Stonham and Piers Barber. The rundown this year is punctuated by unexpected returns to form, gratefully abandoned retirements, and reputation-enhancing step-ups in quality. Our full lists from years gone by can be found here, here, here, here, here,here and here.

10. St. Vincent – MASSEDUCTION

In her fifth studio album, Annie Clark has created one of the most direct, enjoyable and important albums of 2017. The kitsch sleazy album cover nods to the album’s overall theme of female objectification, but it’s the little moments that really bring the album to life: the insanely catchy chorus to “Pills” – which I still can’t get prefect after 100 listens – the fuzz drenched guitar breakdown in “Los Angeles”, or the punctuating vocals crying “girls” and “boys” that signal the chorus of ‘Sugarboy’. Clark retains the quirky, angular sound that has made her so loved, but here has added a more rounded variety of styles: ‘Savior’s’ jazzy melody owes much to Clark’s Love This Giant side project from 2012 with David Byrne, whilst ‘New York’ feels more like a timeless ballad. All these different elements would sound schizophrenic coming from any other artist, but from St. Vincent we wouldn’t have it any other way. Buster Stonham

9. Peverelist – Tesselations

It was another year of unrelenting quality from Peverelist‘s ever-compelling Livity Sound label, with memorable experimental releases from the likes of Forest Drive West, Mosca and Simo Cell demonstrating how the label’s distinct DNA could be pushed and pulled into imaginative new shapes while still staying loyal to its original characteristics: pulsing, urgent techno with a sense of funk and swing. But it was the label boss’s own full-length release – his first in eight years – that formed the year’s memorable centrepiece. As was the case with Kowton’s album last year, it’s a privilege to hear this artist’s ideas teased out over the course of a full album, and in tracks like ‘Still Early’ and ‘Under Clearing Skies’ it also plays host to some of the year’s best club tracks. Pulsating, exciting dance music from one of Britain’s most underrated producers. Piers Barber

8. Public Service Broadcasting – Every Valley

The art of the concept album had dropped out of fashion, so it was only natural that a group of London hipsters decided to give it a revival. The rise and fall of the South Wales mining community may not seem the natural choice of subject matter for a London based electro-indie outfit, but in Every Valley Public Service Broadcasting have created a dazzling, richly textured and emotionally charged ode to a forgotten time and place in modern Britain. Recorded entirely on location in the quintessential Welsh valley town of Ebbw Vale, the album samples news broadcasts, local interviews and sounds of industry from the town itself. This is all built over simple guitar and synth melodies that provide the momentum of the story the album weaves: full of energy and optimism on tracks like ‘Progress’; moving to anger and chaos on ‘All Out’; to a sense of quiet resignation on ‘You + Me’. Every Valley avoids the pitfalls of feeling trite or exploitative, instead brandishing a special sense of pride and defiance. Buster Stonham

7. King Krule – The OOZ

I’m pretty fascinated by Archy Marshall’s evocative and utterly idiosyncratic world, all tarmac, insomnia, and grotty kebab shops. The OOZ is a lengthy and at times rather shapeless record: a push-back against the hype which greeted his first album Six Feet Beneath The Moon and brought apparently unwanted attention from the likes of Beyonce and Frank Ocean. But The OOZ (so named because of Marshall’s fascination with bodily fluids and – it turns out – an apt encapsulation of the album’s interest in the nitty-gritty of human behaviour) is still alarmingly successful in seamlessly immersing the listener into Marshall’s murky London (“this city of parasites”) and even murkier internal monologue. The instantly recognisable King Krule vocal timbre and guitar chords are still here – all tastefully buried in muddy dubstep echoes – but there’s also an accomplished smattering of post-punk (‘Dum Surfer’) and jazz (‘Midnight 01 (Deep Sea Diver)’) which hints at further innovation still to come. Piers Barber

6. Call Super – Arpo

Joe Seaton has emerged as one of the leading minds of electronic music in the late 2010s, with his extended DJ sets alongside the likes of Objekt this year earning a deserved reputation as the stuff of true connoisseurs. His second album Arpo followed closely on the heels of a 12″ collaboration with Beatrice Dillon – but while that release contained two lovely muscular chunks of techno, his solo album is yet more understated, with meandering bass beats and twinkling electronics creating a unique jazz-influenced after-hours experience. ‘No Wonder We Go Under’ and ‘Ekko Ink’ are particularly infectious, while the clarinet in ‘Out To Rust’ (played by Seaton’s dad, no less) closes the album with fascinating sense of dread. Tactile and subtle, Arpo a real one of a kind collection. Piers Barber

5. Kendrick Lamar – DAMN.

Kendrick Lamar has become one of those rare artists that everyone follows, even if they’re not a fan, just to see what he’s going to do next. This time the answer, it turned out, was a return to a more stripped back, intensely personal rap style, with DAMN.‘s complex tracks including references to bible verses on ‘Lust‘, the calling out of other rappers for obsession with social media on ‘Element’, and musings on the trappings of fame on ‘Humble’. As with previous offerings, DAMN. is a star studded affair, with appearances from Rhianna on ”Loyalty’, the album’s most chart friendly track, while U2 somehow successfully pull off a politically motivated attack on Donald Trump’s America in ‘XXX’. DAMN. has only further cemented Kendrick Lamar as the best rapper in the world – the only question that remains is: what next? Buster Stonham

4. Lee Gamble – Mnestic Pressure

Lee Gamble, creator of 2012’s impressive Diversions 1994-1996, remains an artist still shamelessly yet tastefully stuck in the past. Mnsetic Pressure (the word ‘mnestic’ refers to memory) is a compelling scan of the wreckage of the last three decades of UK dance music – including hardcore, IDM, dub, jungle, 2-step and soundsystem culture – which Gamble remains so hopelessly fascinated by. Smeared with thick Hyperdub fingerprints, the album is made up of snippets of fully formed beats, with tracks comprised of elements which initially sound hopelessly out of sync but then expertly align into perfect grooves seemingly stumbled across by accident – before deconstructing and collapsing in on themselves again. It’s an exquisite headphone listen. Piers Barber

3. The National – Sleep Well Beast

The National have never really been known for their experimentation, mostly sticking to a well-worn but successful formula of blues-inspired melodies coupled with smart lyrics of middle class melancholia and introspection. While the latter remains here in spades, Sleep Well Beast represents a musical shake-up, introducing new drum loops and synths to the band’s sound which add intriguing layers to tracks like ‘Walk It Back’. Still, familiar sounds remain, with raucous belter ‘Turtleneck’ echoing the likes of ‘Mistaken for Strangers’ or ‘Mr. November’ from previous albums. The end result is a beautiful album perfect for self-reflection either at home with a bottle of wine or on a long walk through the cold grey city streets – and it’s only The National for whom this is a major compliment. Buster Stonham

2. Actress – AZD

The release of AZD came complete with the compulsory Actress outpouring of posturing and intellectual musings: this record is inspired – apparently – by the material of chrome and obscure outsider art. But look past this inevitable baggage and accomplished beats abound, many of which are delivered with a cheeky wink and sense of pure fun: ‘RUNNER’, for example, is a wonderfully funky slice of bouncing synths, while ‘DANCING IN THE SMOKE’ is a squelchy rhythmic masterclass. Then there’s the staggering ‘FAURE IN CHROME’, which takes a sample of romantic composer Gabriel Fauré’s ‘Requiem’ and soaks it in electronic feedback – a truly mesmeric bit of music which hinted at the artist’s subsequent work with London Contempoary Orchestra later in the year. After the difficult, inaccessible atmospheres contained in 2014’s Ghettoville, AZD represents an enduring return to form. Read our full review of AZD here. Piers Barber

1. Slowdive – Slowdive

A mere 22 years since their last release, shoegaze heroes Slowdive’s gorgeous self-titled release constituted the most triumphant return of 2017. Ethereal opener ‘Slomo’ stops you in your tracks – backed up by a rock-solid wall of guitars, vocalist Rachel Goswell’s high pitched denouement floors me every single time. In ‘Sugar for the Pill’ and ‘No Longer Making Time’ there are great accessible dream pop tunes here, too, which happily render irrelevant conventional criticisms of shoegaze’s self-congratulatory introspection.

Elsewhere, ‘Go Get It’ sounds like a great Talk Talk track (a big compliment in my book), while the hypnotic piano of closer ‘Falling Ashes’ ensures the whole thing lingers in the memory for far longer than the mere 46 minute running time. Slowdive is emotional, urgent, and represents a remarkable and rare thing: a comeback record which contributes deeply to an important legacy – rather than just uncomfortably messing one all up. Piers Barber

]]>https://musicfactorynumberone.com/2017/12/28/the-music-factorys-favourite-albums-of-2017/feed/0records-237579_12801piersbarberalbums-604-604-339-6ff73298.rendition.584.328mstaplesalliwas220px-St_Vincent_-_MasseductionR-10374955-1496226674-2196.jpegpublic-service-broadcasting-every-valleythe ooz_king krulehth080_arpokendrick-lamar-damn-2d10316b-bfad-4a24-a47c-432471e40db8hbdlp037_mnesticpressurethenational_sleepwellbeastactress-azd.jpg61de16abRevisting The Honey Drippers’ ‘Impeach The President’https://musicfactorynumberone.com/2017/11/23/revisting-the-honey-drippers-impeach-the-president/
https://musicfactorynumberone.com/2017/11/23/revisting-the-honey-drippers-impeach-the-president/#respondThu, 23 Nov 2017 17:27:48 +0000http://musicfactorynumberone.com/?p=4393Recent regrettable world events have meant that a rare slice of soul from an obscure singer from Georgia is experiencing an unexpected surge in relevance. Here, Piers Barber revisits the curious history of The Honey Drippers’ 1973 groove ‘Impeach The President’.

“Behind the walls, of the White HouseThere’s a lot of things, that we don’t know aboutBehind the walls, of the White HouseThere’s a lot of things, that we should know about”

In 1972, veteran soul singer Roy C. Hammond gathered together five students from a high school in Jamaica in Queens, New York and named them The Honey Drippers. Together they laid down some tracks, all soaked in the funk-fuelled soul through which Hammond had made his modest name. One of their creations, all looped chopped guitar stabs, rock-solid drum rhythms and colourful saxophone flourishes, was named ‘Impeach the President’ – and would soon become one of the most popular unknown tracks ever recorded.

Mercury, Hammond’s label at the time, were taken aback by the track’s explicit subject matter and inevitably deemed it too controversial for release. It eventually saw the light through Alaga, Hammond’s own imprint, but sold just a few hundred copies. Yet the first four bars of the track went on to be used elsewhere in 731 other tracks (at least according to WhoSampled’s latest comprehensive count), reportedly making it the most-sampled breakbeat in music history.

Given the subsequent prominence of his work, Hammond’s analysis of the young drummer he recruited acquires particular irony: “I worked hard with the drummer,” he said, “because he wasn’t as good a drummer as I would have liked to have”. Today, he doesn’t even remember his name. “I remember drilling him over and over in that basement in Jamaica, Queens. But we finally accomplished what we set out to do.”

*

The subject matter of Hammond’s track is plain and direct, and represents a remarkable snapshot of the popular bafflement turned horror which greeted revelations of President Nixon’s unprecedented conduct. In 1972, staff associated with the president were caught breaking into the Democratic Party headquarters in Watergate, Washington. A subsequent investigation revealed that Nixon had wiretapped White House phones, records which after substantial pressure he was later forced to make public. This sensitive and illegal wiretapping, which revealed his attempts to cover up the break-in and detailed further sensitive information, resulted in his inglorious removal from office. With it came an era of mass national soul searching and shaken confidence which would linger in America throughout the following decades.

The Vietnam War and Nixon’s domestic criminality have, of course, proved fertile subject matter for some of music’s most inspired songwriters. Bob Dylan, for example, deemed Jimmy Cliff’s ‘Vietnam’ to be “the greatest protest song ever written”. Half a million protesters sang John Lennon’s ‘Give Peace a Chance’ at a rally against Nixon. Nina Simone masterfully converted a Langston Hughes poem into a powerful protest song against the war (‘Backlash Blues’), while the Kent State shootings of 4 May 1970 were enshrined in Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s ‘Ohio’. The likes of Marvin Gaye pioneered soul music’s role as a protest vehicle.

Yet Hammond’s devastatingly simple composition constitutes one of the most explicit condemnations of Nixon’s specific predicament. The event confirmed America’s disappointing failure to maximise the hippy-powered potential of the 1960s; dominant instead was a disillusioned confusion, reflected in the nervous consternation of ‘Impeach’’s spoken word narrator: “Aw nah, we can’t do that, man—nah, nah!”

Hammond, a singer from Georgia who remains best known as a member of 1950s doo-wop group The Genies, did not shirk his perceived historical responsibilities, and throughout his career strove to tackle the issues of the day head on. His ownership of Alaga provided an outlet for some politically contentious views: indeed, he had previous with Nixon. His 1971 song ‘Open Letter to President’ pleaded with the troubled president to put an instant stop to the war in Vietnam (“Can’t you see all the protesters in the street… They want to be free, everybody wants to be free”). “Way down in Georgia, they want to be free, South Africa, they want to be free, New York”, he explained, his protestations featuring an early mention of apartheid in South Africa and noting the increasingly incongruent clash between racist American oppression at home and the nation’s professed ambition of exporting freedom abroad. Later in his career, a pointed track named ‘Great, Great Grandson of a Slave’ prompted Mercury to fly Hammond to Chicago in an attempt to persuade him of the benefits of working with a songwriter. Characteristically, he declined.

‘Impeach the President’ was warmly received, applauded for directly addressing the current affairs issue causing such chaos nationwide. It’s popularity quickly dwindled, though, and soon the record was just one of hundreds of soul records resigned to dusty shelves and record store bargain bins.

*

Fast-forward to the late 1980s, when the explicit themes of ‘Impeach the President’ were again jettisoned into focus during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, who became the subject of summer-long hearings on his conduct during the Iran-Contra Affair in 1987. Yet it fell to Marly Marl, the visionary hip hop producer and co-host of Mr Magic’s Rap Attack, the first ever commercial rap radio show, to breathe second life into Hammond’s dusty old track. To his delight, Fuchs was at some point able to pick up a box of 50 copies of the record for just 25 cents each. “‘Impeach’ was cultish,” Fuchs later said. “It kind of separated record purchasers from crate-diggers.”

Marl reportedly obtained the forgotten 45 from Aaron Fuchs, founder of Tuff City Records and a pioneering hip hop journalist. Marl latched onto the kick and snare from the track’s first four bars, sampled it to his two Korg sampling digital delays, and added a kick and hi-hat from a Roland TR-808 drum machine. This new sample contributed to the backing to ‘The Bridge’, a track Marley produced for MC Shan.

“Hear that snare? That snare would change the world,” Marley said. It was used “for a good run on about ten records…they all were hits…Your brain just knows, there’s something in that sound that I like, so you automatically like it.” Marley headed up the Juice Crew, a now legendary collective of hip hop pioneers which included Biz Markie, Big Daddy Kane and Masta Ace. All would record tracks built around the beat, which saw its inexorable rise as a hip hop staple cemented by its inclusion in the DJ-friendly Ultimate Beats and Breaks compilation.

Some vital hits – ‘Eric B. Is President’ by Eric B. & Rakim, Audio Two’s smash ‘Top Billin’’ – have been powered by the Honey Drippers’ kick drum and snare. Indeed, a highlights list of the song’s appearances read like a rundown of rap royalty: De La Soul, Gang Starr, Ice Cube, Run DMC, NWA, Nas. It’s also appeared on recordings far removed from hip hop: take George Benson’s 1996 track ‘The Thinker’, or Mick Jagger’s ‘Sweet Thing’. It recently made a subtle appearance in an episode of Netflix’s hip hop series The Get Down, as well as on Kanye West and Jay Z’s ‘Otis’.

The sample has been used so repeatedly that it now essentially exits as public property. GZA went as far as to acknowledge its ubiquitous presence on Wu-Tang Clan’s ‘As High As Wu-Tang Get’: “You can’t flow, must be the speech impediment / You got lost off the snare off ‘Impeach the President'”, a reference to how perceptively easy the break is to rap over. Elsewhere, Public Enemy’s Chuck D rapped on ‘Rebel Without A Pause” “Impeach the president – pulling out the ray-gun”, a reference to both the famous sample and Reagan’s (‘Ray-gun’s’) bizarre ‘Star Wars’ nuclear missile defence shield.

*

After recording ‘Impeach’, Hammond’s recording career meandered on, with the artist later moving to Allendale, South Carolina to open a record store named Carolina Record Distributors. In 1998, he was sat listening to the radio when one song – ‘Luv Me, Luv Me’ by Shaggy and Janet Jackson – instantly peaked his attention: buried deep within it was the unmistakable break moulded from his own ‘Impeach’ creation. He later tracked down Fuchs, who it turned out had been profiting from Hammond’s groove for almost a decade, without ever trying to track him down.

A contentious legal battle has simmered between Hammond and Fuchs ever since. “You can do a computer search on ‘Impeach the President,’ and the results for how many times it has been sampled will come up in the hundreds. But I’ve gotten nothing in the way of mechanical royalties,” Hammond says. The extent to which The Honey Drippers missed out is perhaps best epitomised by the infamous lawsuit which followed the release of Biz Markie’s ‘Alone Again (Naturally)’, a track which sampled both Gilbert O’Sullivan and Hammond’s Honey Drippers. The case brought by O’Sullivan provoked a deluge of considered debate about the morality and legality of sample culture during hip hop’s golden age. Controversially and momentously, it resulted in damages paid to the artist and even a referral to the criminal court. Hammond was not involved – and so received nothing.

His struggles with the legal system continue to sting. On his album Don’t Let Our Love Die, the song ‘(If I Ever Get My) Feet Back on the Ground’ dissects those who have wronged him, including many lawyers. On one occasion, Hammond was told by the juror that the case had been won, only to later find his lawyer and the opposing attorney carrying out a private conference in the court’s bathroom. He went on to lose the case.

As well as finding trustworthy lawyers and ultimately receiving full compensation for the prolific use of his work, Hammond has one other demand from hip hop: “I would hope that they learn to use real drums. That art comes out of Africa. You cannot take an electronic drum machine and do what a live drummer can do. It’s impossible. The feel is just not going to be there.”

*

And yet still, the remarkable story of The Honey Drippers’ most influential track may well not be over yet. The election of Donald Trump as president has breathed new life into the original record, with few tracks expressing so explicitly the sentiments of so many. Some DJs have even suggested that the single positive outcome of Trump’s election has been that they can now let rip with The Honey Drippers’ infectious 45 and instantly raise spirits, rather than eyebrows. On Discogs, the original 7″ now goes for a median price of £132.27; it’s been sold for as much as £265.04 in the past.

One positive going into 2017 is I won’t feel weird about playing The Honey Drippers “Impeach The President” anymore.

Trump’s rise has prompted many impatient onlookers to bemoan the absence of the emergence of any true protest music capable of provoking anger and casting away apathy in response. Focus has fallen on the Top 40’s inability to function to any degree as a capable vehicle of protest, with arguments abound that the likes of the Chainsmokers and DJ Khaled are hardly rivaling Neil Young and Nina Simeone in their ability to articulate revolutionary anger at current affairs.

Protest music, of course, exists in its own specific moment: indeed, there will never again be a great era of punk, folk, or soul protest music. Artists such as Boston band Hallelujah the Hills have openly mocked such popular expectations that the musical forces of days gone by would be resurrected to face down this latest challenge on their ironic track “Punk Rock’s Gonna Be Great Now That Trump’s in Charge.” Famed political singer-songwriter Billy Bragg has also highlighted the current generation’s specific historical differences. “For it to be a golden age for protest music, you’d need it to be a universal social medium for young people, which it no longer is,” he said. “Since people have learned to use other mediums to express their anger with the world, there’s been a considerable decline of protest music, at least made by white boys with guitars.”

Yet dig a little deeper, and resistance is certainly there to be found in hip hop, a genre where artists have gone from name checking Trump as an money-making icon to forming a mouthpiece for the most extreme opposition to his administration and personal views in music. The likes of Kendrick Lamar and A Tribe Called Quest have led the way, with Kendrick calling out Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia and criticising the role played by the Electoral College in his election in his track ‘The Heart (Part 4)’: “Donald Trump is a chump, know how we feel, punk / Tell ’em that God comin’ / And Russia need a replay button, y’all up to somethin'”. YG’s ‘FDT (Fuck Donald Trump)’ encourages opposition to Trump in an even more explicit fashion.

In the end, then, it feels neatly appropriate that hip hop, which has benefited so richly from a track extolling the impeachment of a president of the past, is leading the way in opposing the current presidency through music. ‘Impeach The President”s curious legacy endures: both musically and – regrettably – thematically.

As for the young drummer plucked from a Queens high school to play in Hammond’s session – well, it’s difficult not to wonder just what he’s made of it all.

]]>https://musicfactorynumberone.com/2017/11/23/revisting-the-honey-drippers-impeach-the-president/feed/0maxresdefaultpiersbarbermaxresdefault2015-05-25_13-55-40.jpgROYC-Nice1.jpgThe best of…Staxhttps://musicfactorynumberone.com/2017/09/06/the-best-of-stax/
https://musicfactorynumberone.com/2017/09/06/the-best-of-stax/#respondWed, 06 Sep 2017 17:30:55 +0000http://musicfactorynumberone.com/?p=4117This year the mythical soul label Stax celebrates 60 years since its foundation in Memphis, Tennessee in 1957. Here Piers Barber runs down his favourite tracks, ranging from oddities to million sellers, that best epitomise the authentic and infectious Stax sound.

I first caught the Stax bug during a visit to Memphis in 2015. It’s impossible to escape music in the city’s downtown area, with Elvis’ comforting drawls and searing blues guitars blasting out of every bar and home. Stax, though, characteristically lingers just outisde of the mainstream. Its fantastic museum, located in the original premises of its studio, is a short taxi ride from the city’s tourist centre, yet hosts a wonderfully rich and comprehensive homage to the influential label. After later hearing The Staple Singers‘s magnificent ‘I’ll Take You There’ blasted out of speakers in a public square, I was hooked.

The Stax sound is gritty, rich and authentically Southern, covering the entire spectrum of soul and R&B as well as gospel, funk, blues and jazz (it was originally formed as a country label). It’s swing and loose touch is most commonly contrasted to the highly methodical, algorithmic precision of Motown; it’s famous finger-clicking logo a nod to the infectious groove and rhythm which characterise its releases.

This year, parent label Concord is marking Stax’s sixtieth anniversary with events including a BBC Prom and a series of re-releases from some of its most famous artists, including Otis Redding, Booker T. and the M.G.s and Isaac Hayes. Here are the Music Factory’s picks, some of which feature less prominently on the greatest hits compilations, which help shed further light on the label’s extensive back catalogue. Go and investigate!

‘By The Time I Get To Phoenix’ – The Mad Lads

Described by Frank Sinatra as “the greatest torch song ever written”, ‘By The Time I Get To Phoenix’ was originally recorded by Johnny Rivers and most famously covered by Isaac Hayes’ in a luscious extended version on the iconic Hot Buttered Soul album. Yet it’s this simple and innocent cover, recorded by Stax foursome the Mad Lads, which truly captures the song’s tenderness and fragility.

‘Bring It On Home To Me’ – Eddie Floyd

Eddie Floyd’s Sam Cooke cover forms a compelling tale of rejection, with the track’s first half featuring the voice of a protagonist desperate to stay cool, measured and polite in the face of a former lover (‘If you ever change your mind,/ About leaving, leaving me behind’). It’s the song’s final 30 seconds which truly endure in the memory, though, as the narrator loses his control and the first half’s clipped sax and organ stabs descend into a desperate yet euphoric plea for forgiveness. It’s one of the most deceptively effective break-up songs.

‘Little Bluebird’ – Little Milton

Although most famously the purveyor of a distinctive soul sound, Stax was also home to some of the era’s richest blues recordings, not least Little Milton’s evocative ‘Little Bluebird’. Stax artist Johnnie Taylor also recorded his own polished version, but it’s Milton’s raw delivery, accompanied by his crying guitar and wonderful ad libs (“Have mercy!” he mutters after a particularly emotive stab of horns), which make this the standout cut.

‘Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get’ – The Dramatics

The Dramatics were recently featured in Kathryn Bigelow’s harrowing Detroit, a film on the 1967 Algiers Motel incident which prompted founding member Larry Reed to leave the band. His group, though, soon went from strength to strength, with top 10 hit ‘Whatcha See is Whatcha Get’ the ultimate example of how their sweet vocal harmonising combined with infectious, gritty rhythms.

‘After Laughter (Comes Tears)’ – Wendy Rene

Wendy Rene’s brief Stax career all but drew to a close after she made the last-minute decision to miss a flight which ultimately crashed and killed Otis Redding, the first true Stax icon, as well as six others in December 1967. In ‘After Laughter’, Rene’s remarkable voice is mixed down low in a mysterious, almost reggae-sounding cautioning on the painful pitfalls of love. The track was revived in the 1990s when it was sampled on the Wu Tang Clan’s ‘Tearz’.

‘If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me)’ – The Staple Singers

Chicago’s Staple Singers were a family gospel group who went secular, composing what is said to be Martin Luther King Jr.’s favourite song ‘Why Am I Treated So Bad’ in 1966. They later became Stax royalty following their smash-hit ‘I’ll Take You There’, released four year’s after MLK’s assassination in the label’s home city of Memphis. ‘If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me)’ is delivered in a similar vein, with a rock-solid groove accompanied by timeless sentiments of equality (“No hatred,/ Will be tolerated”).

‘Who Is She (And What Is She To You)’ – The Soul Children

An infectious rarity which features on oddities compiliation Stax of Funk, ‘Who Is She’ is a Bill Withers composition to which the Soul Children added their own bass-y, delectable swing. This lengthy version also includes amusing extended spoken interlude between the group’s two female vocalists. Unfortunately, this one never saw an official release.

‘Get Out Of My Life’ – The Mad Lads

Enriched by the emphatic work of a glorious horn section, this Mad Lads track is a brave yet trembling attempt at defiance in the face of a failed relationship. The song’s basic couplets (‘Get off my ladder, woman,/ I got to climb up to the top’; ‘Get out my eyes teardrops,/ I got to see my way around’) are wonderfully impactful in their simplicity. Its almost hip hop-style beat has since been sampled by the likes of Biz Markie, Rakim and Pete Rock.

And so to Manchester, for my latest attempt to witness the perfect Radiohead show. Previous attempts have been great, but not so great: Coachella 2012, an exquisite musical performance, but one undermined by a bizarrely passive, ‘Creep’ obsessed Californian audience; and Glastonbury 2011, where all that post-King of Limbs experimentalism during their surprise Park Stage outing was admittedly pretty wonderful, but by no means constituted their definitive show.

So here we are on a grey and drizzly late afternoon at Old Trafford cricket ground, eagerly awaiting a one-off show arranged to replace the two dates originally scheduled to take place in Manchester’s MEN Arena. For all the understandable and tragic developments that forced the switch, it’s a venue which presents a highly different proposition to the one we originally signed up for.

This is a 50,000 capacity space, with one temporary stage installed at one side of the circular stadium (Old Trafford’s shape means the nearest ticketed seats to the stage essentially point away from it). There’s also a gigantic pit, presumably for those willing to cough up even more than the £70-odd I paid, which never approaches full capacity at any stage of the show and forces everyone else to stand at a considerable distance from the action. And then there’s the Manchester weather: this evening it’s densely cloudy, with wind and occasional rain.

In short, it’s not an arena finely curated for the purpose of delivering a kick-ass concert, and regrettably it’s these factors that wreak havoc to the first half of the show. The band start with the exquisite ‘Let Down’, a shimmering highlight from OK Computer, the album recently re-released with accompanying bonus material this year. But it’s instantly noticeable that it lacks a punch – the weather, acoustics and volume are just not right. And it’s soon clear it’s not a one off, with these issues persisting long beyond the normal two or three songs it normally takes to iron out mistakes made in the original sound check.

There are moments when things threaten to kick into gear – a satisfyingly muscular ‘Myxomatosis’, for example – but upsettingly it’s mostly a struggle to hear the band at all above nearby chat or singing. It is slightly heartbreaking to hear the stupendous ‘Pyramid Song’ or compelling ‘Everything In It’s Right Place’ delivered at such tepid volume against a light grey sky. At one point an annoying ‘Oh, Jeremy Corbyn’ chant also breaks out, one which the band do absolutely nothing to incite and seem amusingly eager to drown out by launching into another song.

As the show goes on it feels slightly like listening to a Radiohead greatest hits playlist played at full blast in the room next door: you can tell the songs are brilliant, yes, but the experience is just not quite as satisfying as it should be. It feels, as a friend points out, like Radiohead have been booked as the support act before the real headliners – Radiohead! – make their triumphant entrance later in the evening.

The band troop off for the first time after ‘2+2=5’. It’s still light – the same friend is convinced it’s getting lighter – and barely a single song has really hit the spot. A first encore begins with a low key version of A Moon Shaped Pool‘s ‘Daydreaming’, which somehow seems to lack anywhere near the emotional punch that the recorded version delivers through a decent pair of headphones. It hardly does much to inspire confidence that anything’s going to much improve.

But then, with around 45 minutes to go, something really does happen: Manchester finally gets dark, somebody locates all the volume controls, and suddenly we’ve got a proper live show on our hands – for everyone in the ground, not just those at the front. And Thom Yorke finally says something that’s genuinely poignant and appropriate: “Thank you Manchester, god bless your city.”

‘Plastic Android’ and ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ (the line “It wears you out” is sung with real gusto by the band’s amusingly stereotypical gathered fan base) close the first encore, and you’re reminded just how much Radiohead really are a great rock band; masters of rapid walls of drumming and crunching guitar riffs. In fact, the whole show reinforces my sacrilegious theory that, well, Kid A is maybe just electronic music that other less prominent artists have actually done a bit better, and that it’s the less fashionable OK Computer that really constitutes this band’s true masterwork.

The band’s second encore is genuinely special, a stunning quartet of ‘There There’, ‘I Promise’ (a new song from the OK Computer sessions), ‘The Bends’ and ‘Karma Police‘, delivered in darkness, at a volume you can feel in your bones and to a genuinely adoring audience. The line, “For a minute there, I lost myself” rings out long after the band have left. My highlight is the rare live outing for ‘The Bends’, which fizzes brilliantly and is a perfect adrenaline hit for super-fans desperate to take home memories of the performance of some memorable oddity.

I’m finally reminded why I came all this way: to soak up a 26 song extravaganza – which ultimately stretches to over two and a quarter hours – from one of British music’s most undeniably vital acts. It’s just a shame that, with all these fans having made their own respective pilgrimages from across the country, that we’ve had to wait so long into the show to really appreciate it.

]]>https://musicfactorynumberone.com/2017/07/07/live-review-radiohead-old-trafford-cricket-ground-4th-july-2017/feed/03000piersbarber3000.jpgDD9fSqZXUAEQly4.jpgAsk the DJ: The House Clearance House Partyhttps://musicfactorynumberone.com/2017/07/02/ask-the-dj-the-house-clearance-house-party/
https://musicfactorynumberone.com/2017/07/02/ask-the-dj-the-house-clearance-house-party/#respondSun, 02 Jul 2017 10:59:22 +0000http://musicfactorynumberone.com/?p=3907Tim and Aaron run The House Clearance House Party, the UK’s only free vinyl club night. The concept is simple: they only play 7’’ vinyl singles, and after each one is finished, it’s simply given away – every single record on the night is up for grabs! In the second of our Ask the DJ features, we hear about some of the tracks that make the night tick.

The record that people always ask about: Diana Ross – ‘My Old Piano’

One of those records that people know but don’t hear out that much. It’s been re-edited by a few house and disco DJs so has got out to a fresh new audience, but we love playing the original 7’’.

The record that takes the warm up slot to a main set: Isaac Hayes – ‘Disco Connection’

As we play all night long we definitely need to pick a moment when we we both think: “right, let’s do it”. Isaac Hayes‘ ‘Disco Connection’ is this ultimate stomper that loads of people haven’t heard, but once you have it’s so infectious and seems to go on for longer than any 7’’ record should. Wicked tune that always means its show time.

The record you always try and buy back after every gig: David Bowie – ‘Let’s Dance’

Prince‘s ‘Kiss’, Fleetwood Mac‘s ‘Little Lies’, Martha Reeves’ ‘Jimmy Mac’, lots of MJ and Stevie are all candidates here… but David Bowie’s ‘Lets Dance’ is a staple in our sets and always gets a huge cheer – and queue at the DJ booth.

The record that’s caused the most chaos: Nirvana – ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’

When we played Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ the decks got knocked over as so many people rushed over to say, “can I have this one?” That was pretty crazy – and made for the ultimate rewind.

The first time we played this everyone started singing along, we know its great but the whole place went mad. People who you thought wouldn’t be into it ran to dance and got well involved, so now it features in most of the sets we play. Go on Donna!

The record you regret giving away: LCD Soundsystem – ‘Daft Punk Is Playing At My House’

Aaron gave away his own copy of this which turned out to be worth a fair whack. But the bloke was thrilled and it went to a good home.

A favourite track to end the night: Al Green – ‘Let’s Stay Together’

Tim loves playing this then running off into the crowd to sway away.

A song for the morning after: Derrick Harriott – ‘Do I Worry’

Normally something to soothe the head. Aaron reaches for the rocksteady and some smooth Derrick Harriott.

Current DJ inspiration – Greg Wilson

We both really enjoy Greg Wilson sets, and that spirit of cross-genre, cross-year sound and tracks is something we strive for. When going on road trips to pick up record hauls we normally end up putting on one of his latest mixes.

Favourite record shop

For us its less about the record shops and more about the individuals selling their cherished stacks. We’ve met some characters along the way travelling up and down the country. One guy from Nottingham sticks out. He was selling his old DJ collection off and as we were driving away he ran down the drive and pleaded to keep one record back. We stopped and gave him his wish!

Favourite club played: White Heat at The Lexington

Being invited to play at White Heat at The Lexington was awesome. So many great acts have graced that night over the years, so to see our set going down so well with their crowd and everyone clambering to get free vinyl was special.

Upcoming gigs

We’re off to the Secret Garden Party later this month, taking over The Cocktail Bar on Sunday 23rd between midday and 4pm.

Darren Cunningham has spent his career carefully ensuring his Actress releases are reviewed alongside an accompanying barrage of heavy intellectual musings. AZN, his fifth full length release, is no different, with the artist detailing his indebtedness to, among others, the notion of Jungian psychology’s ‘shadow aspect’, Chicago’s Cloud Gate sculpture, and outsider artist James Hampton, a black janitor who built religious art out of scavenged junk. Most of all, it’s an album apparently influenced by chrome, a material relevant, in Cunningham’s words, “both as a reflective surface to see the self in, and as something that carves luminous voids out of any colour.” Quite.

Actress is certainly a reliably interesting story. A former professional striker with West Bromwich Albion, Cunningham’s career took a dramatic U-turn when a recurrent serious injury and an escalating fascination with Octave One and Fingers Inc. diverted his attention to electronic music. All subsequent releases have been accompanied by significant mystique and theorising: 2014’s Ghettoville, for example, is Actress’ existential crisis, a record he apparently produced when “acutely aware of the simulated prism that required breakout”.

It’s all heavy stuff, and reviews of his music tend to end up eye-rollingly high brow, as critics attempt to reach the same level of intellectual clarity apparently achieved by their subject. Yet, as Alexis Petridis points out in his excellent AZD review, it’s actually pretty difficult to tell to what extent this dense theorising is earnest or delivered distinctly tongue in cheek, intended to turn heads and create conversation. My suspicion is that it’s a heavy dose of the latter. After all, it must be hard gig being an electronic music critic – having some weighty sleeve note copy as backup certainly helps fashion interesting reviews capable of differentiating one record from the another.

Yet beneath it all, of course, is often deceptively simple music of sumptuous quality, addictive grooves and straight-up compelling beats. AZD is no different. There’s a lot of fun in this record: it’s twisted, teasingly layered and occasionally indecipherable, yes, but relentless good fun nonetheless.

Take ‘RUNNER’, an infectiously funky deep house roller punctuated by bouncing synths and a skipping rhythm – a “personal re-soundtracking of Bladerunner,” in Cunningham’s words. It’s addictive and, put quite simply, sounds absolutely great. Club-focused tracks abound (there are certainly more here than on Ghettoville); take first single ‘X22RME’ or ‘DANCING IN THE SMOKE’, a squelchy rhythmic masterclass, which prominently features the stern robotic vocal instruction “Dance, hear my record spin.”

Thick characteristically Actress-y fingerprints are smeared throughout. ‘CYN’ sounds like 1990s hip hop radio played deep underwater in some distant enchanted lake, and with its title of ‘NYC’ spelled backwards and inclusion of rapid samples of Rammellzee, a New York hip hop hero, it constitutes a classy twisted take on modern city life. On ‘Faure in Chrome’, stunning strings played by the London Contemporary Orchestra are gradually subsumed and distorted by what sounds like a overworked dial-up modem dangerously spluttering and squealing out of control. It’s a quintessential Actress treatment of French romantic composer Gabriel Fauré’s ‘Requiem’: the final cut is a genuinely breathtaking piece of music.

AZD is a triumph. It’s unusual, inspired, and imaginative, but threaded throughout with untainted flavours of pure groove and rhythm. Spend time with it, look past the often wearisome intellectualising, and get lost in one of the best records of the year.

]]>https://musicfactorynumberone.com/2017/04/27/album-review-azd-actress/feed/0Photography by Tom D Morgan - www.tomdmorgan.compiersbarbermaxresdefault.jpgactress-azdTDM_9935-Actress-ICA-Tom-D-Morgan-WEB.jpgThe best of…Ilian Tapehttps://musicfactorynumberone.com/2017/04/04/the-best-of-ilian-tape/
https://musicfactorynumberone.com/2017/04/04/the-best-of-ilian-tape/#respondTue, 04 Apr 2017 21:53:19 +0000http://musicfactorynumberone.com/?p=3581To mark the release of its predictably brilliant ten year anniversary compilation, Piers Barber takes on the tough task of picking just ten of the best tracks from Ilian Tape, the Munich-based techno label run by brothers Marco and Dario Zenker.

Relentlessly interesting and reliably consistent, Ilian Tape have spent the last ten years mastering music perfectly suited to both cavernous venues and introspective headphone listening – plus anywhere in between. The label commands undisputed respect – see this affectionate list of tributes from other artists for proof of the clout they carry among their peers.

Their music comprises the happiest of marriages between crisp and urgent German techno and chopped UK 90s breakbeats, infused perfectly with elements of ambient, house and dub. Most importantly, their releases are soaked in an intense sense of soul and melody sometimes rare in a genre obsessed by the inhuman industrial.

Here are some of the label’s finest releases so far.

Zenker Brothers – ‘Inti’

As well as their role as label head honchos, the two Zenkers are influential producers in their own right (and, if their recent RA Exchange is anything to go by, thoroughly lovely fellas to boot). ‘Inti’ is a marvellous example of an Ilian Tape staple: rolling, addictive grooves, given space to breathe and hypnotise over six compelling minutes.

Andrea – ’22:22′

Label staple Andrea has been key to shaping the Ilian Tape sound alongside fellow Italian producer Stenny, with whom he has released several joint EPs. ’22:22′, which features an addictive breakbeat on a bed of tasteful, euphoric strings, is a prime example of their exquisite productions.

Djrum – ‘Untitled 9’

This is a captivating 10 minute exploration of broken techno, immaculately produced, cunningly chopped together and framed throughout by some beguiling synth work. Struction’s ‘Don’t Blame’ – on the flipside of this release – is another label highlight.

Stenny – ‘Outime Artefacts’

Propelled by a driving breakbeat with epic strings lurking tantalisingly low in the mix, this otherworldly roller is a dreamy, almost filmic production that epitomises the label’s dedication to melody. Its only fault is that it could easily be twice as long.

Peverelist & Kowton – ‘End Point (Stenny & Andrea Remix)’

Livity Sound and Ilian Tape are a perfect match: here Stenny and Andrea hook up Peverelist and Kowton‘s already excellent ‘End Point’ with a muscular backbone and shuffling breakbeat. Peverelist’s appearance on the Ilian Tape podcast suggests healthy links between the two labels – here’s hoping for further similar hook-ups in the future.

Marco Zenker – ‘Remain Silence’

The Zenkers’ admiration of the likes of Basic Channel and Rhythm & Sound is clear throughout their label’s discography. Take ‘Remain Silence’, on which hazey dub echoes reverberate beautifully behind a garage-y shuffle.

Skee Mask – ‘Panorama’

‘Panorama’ is taken from Shred, Ilian Tape’s highest profile LP which made it into the top five of our albums of the year list for 2016. It’s a beguiling mix of complex broken beat and beautifully dreamy drum pads and constitutes just one of the many rich soundscapes found on this perfectly paced album. Elsewhere a deft mix of frantic breakbeat and nuanced techno combines to from an expertly sequenced whole.

Andres Zacco & Rupcy – ‘Thaw (Rupcy Remix)’

Ilian Tape has certainly released more than its fair share of straight-up hectic, clattering techno into the wild. This is a great example: rollicking bass accompanied by skipping drum patterns, all perfectly curated to hit the spot at peak time.

Struction – ‘Seel’

The Zenkers gave their artists free reign over their contributions to their ten year anniversary compilation. The result is a string of highlights, including Shed’s star turn under the name Seelow, Andrea’s ‘Blue’ and Skee Mask’s twinkling opener ‘Excess Signal’. Struction’s ‘Seel’, meanwhile, is a bubbling warm bass masterclass.

Skee Mask – ‘Kordman Return (Swing Mix)’

Skee Mask turns out to be so prolific that he’s left his label no choice but to set up a new off-shoot just to provide an adequate outlet for it all. This is the opening track from 2012, the first ‘Skee Series’ EP. It’s typically tasteful and expertly produced, all skipping rhythms, squelching synths and razor sharp drum patterns.

]]>https://musicfactorynumberone.com/2017/04/04/the-best-of-ilian-tape/feed/02017itlp03-a-decade-ilian-tape-converted2piersbarberzenkerbrothersb_010814avatars-000038554535-2erpgn-t500x500Ask the DJ: Hun Grrrhttps://musicfactorynumberone.com/2017/04/04/ask-the-dj-hun-grrr/
https://musicfactorynumberone.com/2017/04/04/ask-the-dj-hun-grrr/#respondTue, 04 Apr 2017 21:49:06 +0000http://musicfactorynumberone.com/?p=3433 In the first of a new series, Piers Barber chats to DJ (and friend of the Factory) Hun Grrr about the tracks, mixes and clubs that are currently tickling his musical fancy. He’s been DJing his own blend of house, disco and Balearic since 2008 and recently featured on a W+L Black release alongside Jack Priest and Ollie Terrey. Want to sit in the hot seat? Get in touch!

I always get less time to explore techno than I’d like, so mixes like this are what dreams are made of when I’m after both quantity and pure quality. Call Super’s mix for this historic series packs so much depth and feeling into so many track changes – one of the hardest technical challenges to pull off as a DJ.

Favourite non-dancefloor music: CFCF – On Vacation

I could happily say Tame Impala’s last LP (which I’m still deeply obsessed by), but a release that’s not received the exposure I feel it deserved was CFCF’s mini album from early last year. It’s not only beautiful but has also miraculously not been placed in my iTunes playlists reserved for sets.

Favourite club played: The Winchester, Bournemouth

It’s hard to gravitate away from the many incredible and idiosyncratic evenings I spent at The Winchester in Bournemouth during my years living in the city. I’ll always remember many genuinely extraordinary and life affirming moments playing there!

Upcoming gigs

13th April, Horse & Groom, Hoxton: This should be a good’un, it’s an Easter/bank holiday special for Club Hiatus and I’ll be playing with Private Agenda headlining. I’ll also be playing with David Marsdon and the Club Hiatus All Stars at Oslo in Hackney shortly afterwards too, which should be crazy.